What the heck is a Samwise anyway?

The Fuzzypants Story

PART II

Sammy is not just a Sammy or a Sam or even a Samuel. He is a Samwise. So what the heck is a Samwise?

Well, I’m kind of a geek. (My sister will probably say that the “g” should most definitely be a capital letter…)

I get really, really excited about things that I like. Actually, I’m not sure if I ever just “like” things. I tend to fall head-over-heels in love with stuff. I remember wanting my hair cut like Bruce Wayne when I was 7 and totally obsessed with Batman (I kinda still am but I gave up on the hairstyle), and when I spent hours on ice skates trying to be Dorothy Hamill (yup, I tried that haircut too – it didn’t work out well for my wildly curly hair), and screaming myself hoarse when I saw Duran Duran at Madison Square Garden. Even today, at 40-something, I get excited when I find a Harry Potter weekend marathon on TV, a new Doctor Who special, an open weekend I can use to binge-watch some Sci-Fi or Fantasy series on Netflix (Supernatural, Firefly, Star Trek… Daredevil is my most recent obsession.) I find that I can never hold back a little one-girl dance party when I see something awesome.

And my geekiness is not limited to books, TV, or movies – it overflows into every aspect of my life.

When I first saw my chubby little cat, I even surprised myself with a big ol’ “OHMYGOODNESSLOOKHOWFLIPPINGCUTEANDCUDDLYHEIS!” I was all sorts of giggly and giddy. I wish I could say he was just as excited to meet me but I’m pretty used to most people and animals looking at me like I’m a little nuts.

But he let me take him home anyway. During the drive home, I named him Samwise after my favorite Lord of the Rings character: Samwise Gamgee. Samwise the Brave. He was going to make it easier for me to sleep in my old house at night. He’d make sure I never felt alone and he’d be there if I watched too many episodes of X-files before bed and woke up totally creeped out in the middle of the night.

“One tiny Hobbit against all the evil the world could muster. A sane being would have given up, but Samwise burned with a magnificent madness, a glowing obsession to surmount every obstacle, to find Frodo, destroy the Ring, and cleanse Middle Earth of its festering malignancy. He knew he would try again. Fail, perhaps. And try once more. A thousand, thousand times if need be, but he would not give up the quest.”

~ J.R.R. Tolkien

And there you have it. The story of Fuzzypants. So come on in, have a look around, and please drop me a line to tell me your story. I’d love to hear it.